Colossians 3:1–11
Today, as we enter a new year, a passage from the letter of the Holy Apostle Paul to the Colossian believers was read, teaching us how to live the new life Christ has bestowed upon us.
Paul first tells his fellow Colossians that through faith in Christ and the waters of baptism, they have died to their old ways with Christ and been raised to new life with Him. Paul continues:
“Since therefore ye have been raised with Christ… set your minds on things above, and not on earthly things.”
And when Christ, who was taken up to heaven on the 40th day after his resurrection, returns to earth,
“When Christ, who is our life, appears, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.”
Until that time, our lives are hidden in God, but when Christ appears on earth in the splendor that surrounds his resurrected body, we Christians will also show the world our new life, which until then has not been fully visible because it was obstructed by the still-powerful old life.
This new life, which will eventually become visible, will not suddenly become visible at the Lord’s second coming. Paul teaches about the way of life required of us who have begun to live a life of following the Lord, who await the Second Coming with hope even though we are still imperfect.
It is a way of life in which we “formerly lived in these” — fornication, impurity, lust, evil desire, and greed — and “we put away anger, wrath, malice, slander, and foul language that comes out of our mouths; we do not lie to one another.” At that time, we are said to put off the old man with its deeds and put on the new man, who is renewed in knowledge after the image of God who created us.
This way of life is not something that begins as a lonely, individual struggle, isolated from one another. The new life in Paul’s vision is always “communion” — a fellowship of faith and life. This communion is described in the Acts of the Apostles as follows:
“All those who believed were one and had all things in common. They shared their possessions, sharing them with each other as needed. They met together daily with one accord in the temple, and in their homes they broke bread (the Eucharist) and ate their meals together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God” (2:44-47).
Finally, Paul teaches us something very important that we must not forget today.
“There will no longer be difference between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free. Christ is all and in all.”
The church is a fellowship in which all those who believe in Christ and have been immersed in the same waters of baptism, transcending differences of race, nationality, social class, status, and occupation, live together, help each other, share all their joys and sorrows, and above all, worship together, with Christ within them as their guide.
“Christ is all and in all.”
In this new year, let our churches be even more nurtured into the church that Paul taught us about.